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How to Prevent Shoulder Injuries

One of the most common issues swimmers experience involve the shoulders. If you’ve been swimming for a while, the chances are you’ve probably heard of someone who has experienced a shoulder injury, or you may have even experienced a shoulder injury yourself. During the opening day of London Olympics, FINA released a video entitled “Prevention of Shoulder Injuries in Aquatics Sports” to raise awareness of shoulder injuries in swimming.

The goal of the video is to show swimmers various exercises that can help prevent debilitating shoulder issues. By choosing the Olympics as a medium, FINA really wanted to get this message out to a global audience to raise awareness.

The video explains the basic anatomy of the shoulder to show swimmers where the most common injuries in the sport of swimming occur. Then FINA video goes on to show detailed visuals of dry land exercises that can help swimmers avoid these injuries all together. Some of these exercises require extra equipment, but some you can just do with a ball, water bottle or no equipment at all. Just taking a little time doing the dry land shoulder exercises really can go a long way to help avoid injury, but they can also improve your strength and flexibility to improve your stroke.

The video was compiled by top experts that included physicians, trainers, physical therapist and coaches, and you know FINA wouldn’t do a second rate job at anything they do. If you are swimmer or new to swimming, this video can help you build strength and flexibility in your shoulders. In the long-run you can maintain the health of your shoulders, because there is nothing like a shoulder injury to really put a damper on your athletic or fitness swimming goals.